


Interconnected Loops of the Universe

by tielan



Category: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Genre: Gen, History, Living, Slice of Life, herstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of beginnings and endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interconnected Loops of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/gifts).



The Force is in everything, around everything, through everything, tying the universe together.

"It’s like knitting," says Maz’ mentor.

Maz learns to knit in the temple – and weave and sew and mend and cook and clean. They’re trying to be self-sufficient, to know all the things they have to know.

“But we’ll be working among people who have those skills,” she protests, much preferring to work among the machines – ‘the tinkerings’, as the elders call it.

“It never hurts to learn,” is the teacher’s answer. “And temple garments are much in demand in the cities.”

* * *

 

The reed mat is itchy, and Maz wriggles a little bit, trying to ease the discomfort.

 _Maz_ warns the teacher, a soft telepathic presence in her head, _think past the mat._

“I can’t,” she says.

 _Focus on your toes,_ says the teacher. _Don’t focus on the mat._

She tries to focus on her toes – she really does, but the mat keeps interfering. “The weaver didn’t like making it. She was hungry and tired and the price wasn’t good enough but it was better than going hungry.” Maz knows what it’s like going hungry – it’s how the temple picked her up in the first place.

“And that’s why we’re using the mats.” The teacher sounds lecture-ish now. “You must put away distractions and focus; the Force flows through us best when our attention is not divided.”

Maz sighs and – as best she can – thinks past the mat.

* * *

 

Her first rebellion against the drudgery of the chores they foist on her is small: she simply doesn’t wash her hands before sitting down to her knitting.

The final resultant square is neat enough – but grubby.

“You may use it to scrub your hands before further work,” says the teacher, handing it back to her. “And here is your next project.”

Maz scowls, feeling tricked.

* * *

 

The temple is an old one, heavy stone in a verdant landscape of trees – so different to the city that Maz came from.

“It’s so you can’t run away,” says one of the older boys sagely. “f you’re not good, the teachers let you run away so the Rancors in the rainforest get you for dinner. Om-nom-nom!”

Some of the younger kids are scared, but Maz frowns over her tinkering – the teachers don’t mind her pulling things apart from the junkheaps so long as they’re not items that the temple needs to use. “Aren’t rancors from the desert? Why would they be in a rainforest?”

“To eat little children who ask too many questions!”

Maz rolls her eyes and the younger kids are comforted by her disdain.

She likes the rainforest, though. When the teachers take them running outside the temple, showing them how to use the Force to push their abilities, Maz always spares a little awareness from the lessons to monitor the world around her – the sense of the creatures who live there, the timelessness of the trees that were ancient when the temple was first built.

* * *

 

Her scrubbing cloths turn to washcloths, turn to wraps and throws, turn to clothing suitable for wear. She makes clothing for the rainforest – fine-knitted water-repelling, body-heat containing layers – and wears it out into the misty cool.

But she still hates knitting and sewing and weaving, although she’ll help with the cooking and washing and cleaning. They’re just things that need to be done amidst the lessons about the Force, the universe, and everything, an effort that she doesn’t have the time or patience to do on her own.

* * *

 

The day the Great Leader comes to visit the temple and the Eldest Teacher, Maz skips out early, knowing she’ll pay for it later, but knowing she’ll have an entire day free since they’ll have no-one to spare to come fetch her.

She’s climbing a rockface when the first wave of shock and terror hits her, and nearly loses her grip.

 _Focus on your toes._ She digs her toes and fingers more firmly into the crevices, grits her teeth and keeps climbing until she reaches a ledge. Then she tucks herself in and trembles, fending off the battering sense of hundreds of people crying out in fear and incomprehension. _Don’t focus on the fear._

From her vantage point, she can see the temple, the heavy ovoid ship that belongs to the Great Leader, the smoke from the kitchens thick in the damp air of the rainforest—

Her breath catches, and she eases herself up the rockface until she’s standing.

Those aren’t the kitchens burning.

* * *

 

The bodies are piled in the Hall Of All, half-burned, ashy, but some are still painfully recognisable. Who did this? Was it the Great Leader? Or was it after she came? And why, when all the temple does is sit out here sewing and weaving and occasionally sending people out?

The questions are unimportant: walls around her resonate with the pain and suffering of the teachers and the temple students, and Maz shivers with the power of it.

* * *

 

Solas is a trade city, hectic and busy; nothing like the quiet of the temple.

Maz would enjoy it more if her senses weren’t humming; the temple taught her how to push away the quiet of the rainforest, but it’s a different thing to push away the noise of the city. And the compulsion on her is a weight as heavy as the air-rider she pushes through the city, cobbled together out of the bits and pieces of the skimmers and left in the hangar.

There are murmurs in the city, bits of gossip she hears as she passes by – politics and arguments, a war that’s draining resources and causing planets to evacuate, the promises of great leaders, and the undercurrents of distrust and bitterness.

Even here, through the cacophony of people, Maz can feel the shape of things changing.

She’s almost at the civic chambers, going to report the when fear touches her soul with a cold finger, and she turns to see the dark ovoid of the Great Leader’s craft descending to the ship-pad from the sky.

* * *

 

Temple garments are indeed in demand, but Maz sells what she collected from the stores to a shady dealer who probably thinks to cheat her by having her throat cut in the market alley she darts down on her way to the docks.

The thugs frown and walk right past her as she huddles, concentrating.

* * *

 

It should be easier to hide in a city than a rainforest.

The difference is that, in the rainforest, they weren’t looking for her.

But Maz wasn’t born to the temple, dedicated early, tested by the mendicants and brought into the temple when she was barely old enough to walk and talk and speak. So she knows how the world works, how to jerry-rig a crowd-counter, how to sell trash like it’s treasure.

Not that the air-rider is trash to the tourist, who pays for it with undisguised glee before swinging his legs over and onto it.

Two hours after the Great Leader’s arrival in the city, Maz has taken a job as an oilfinger on a spacefreighter headed in towards the Core. She picks the Mon Cal freighter because she has a good feeling about it, and she prefers the humidity.

Four hours after that, they’re in hyperspace, ultimately on their way to Corellia.

* * *

 

The _Ventral Andemon_ hop-skips its way through space, occasionally taking passengers, mostly shipping cargo. It’s a family ship, with two families of Mon Cal spanning three generations, most of the crew taken from the family, and supplemented by various permanent and temporary crew.

Maz is one of the temporary crew, and, shortly after her arrival, a point of interest to the younglings, who warble at her in damp and burbling tones as they follow her around the ship’s insides.

“Don’t pay them any mind,” says the Captain when Maz brings it up. “They’re old enough to know what not to touch. Just don’t let them distract you.”

She doesn’t; just goes about her work and learns to warble back at the kids – much to the adults’ amusement. She learns how shipboard life works – much the same as temple life – slow and steady, with only the occasional change in routine.

She doesn’t think about the temple, about what she left behind. Not until she has to.

* * *

 

“That’s temple make,” says the First Mate one day as Maz is repairing a wrap that got caught on something while she was climbing through the belly of the ship – it’s not always heated in the spaces. Next time, though, she’ll put a canvas coverall on top. One large, golden eye settles on Maz. “Were you a temple kid?”

“No.” Panic looms. She gets control of it – she thinks. “I just....I bought it in the market.”

* * *

 

The Captain sits her down. “There’s news out from Hobling,” she says, “where we picked you up. The temple there was...well, ransacked, I suppose is the word. The teachers and students were found dead – all of them, so far as we can tell.” She tilts her head, fixing Maz with a firm gaze. “I don’t suppose you know about that?”

She’s been preparing for this, ever since the First Mate noticed her wrap. “I don’t want to go back.”

“We wouldn’t make you, even if there was someone looking for you,” says the Captain calmly. “As it is, I just wanted to let you know that you’re a good oilfinger – one of the best we’ve had. If you want to come with us beyond Corellia, we’re happy to keep you. And if you want to be put off at one of the other Force Temples around these parts, we can find one that’ll take you in.”

Maz doesn’t need to think about it for more than a moment. “I like it here.”

“Then we’ll do that.” The large eyes regard her for a long, unnerving moment. “You might find it’s better to be out here than in the temples, all things considered. Rumour has it that the Force users are schisming.”

“What’s happened?”

“What always happens when people acquire power. Some feel that power should be actively used to lead and master those around them, with others think it should only be used in defence.” She shrugs. “It will pass like the tides. You’ll see.”

* * *

 

It doesn't pass like the tides. It spreads and spreads, swallowing the galaxy in a fractious and bitter war that peters out in painful time after death and death and death, leaving only one side in view.

Maz stays with the Mon Cal for nearly a decade during that time, becoming a spacer, learning how to manage a freighter. She avoids the temples, Force-users, and the factions wherever possible – the _Jedi_ and the _Sith_ they’re calling themselves. She doesn't want to be either of them. She only wants to be _Maz_.

This thing she learns most strongly in those years: perhaps the Force ties all things together, but it surely can’t stop people from tearing themselves apart.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I found myself somewhat bemused by the idea of Maz Kanata _knitting_...


End file.
